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Monday, January 30, 2012

QOTW.


abc.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

the beauty of pain.

i know its a long quote.. but its C S Lewis so you know its good. read it.

"... Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing i expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me and one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. you may think that, being a dragon, i could have knocked any lion out easily enough. but it wasn't that kind of fear, i wasn't afraid of it eating me, i was just afraid of it - if you can understand. well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes, and i shut my eyes tight. but that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it."

"you mean it spoke?"

"i dont know. now that you mention it, i dont think it did,but it told me all the same. and i knew id have to do what it told me, so i got up and followed it. and it led me a long way into the mountains. and there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. so at last we came to the top of a mountain id never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. in the middle of it there was a well...

i knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it... and i thought if i could get in there and bathe, it would ease the pain in my leg. but the lion told me i must undress first. mind you, i dont know if he said any words out loud or not.

...oh, of course, i thought, thats what the lion means. so i started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. and then i scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, mu whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after and illness, or as i was a banana....

but just as i was going to put my feet into the water i looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. oh, thats alright, said i, it only means i had a smaller suit on underneath the first one, and ill have to get out of it too. so i scratched and tore again and this under-skin peeled off beautifully ad out it steeped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe....

well, exactly the same things happened again. and i thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have i got to take off? ... so i scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. but as soon as i looked at myself in the water i knew it had been no good...

then the Lion said... 'you will have to let me undress you.' i was afraid of his claws, i can tell you but i was pretty nearly desperate now. so i just lay flat down on my back and let him do it.

the very first tear he made was so deep that i thought it had gone right into my hear. and when he began pulling off the skin, it hurt worse than anything i've ever felt. the only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. you know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. it hurts like billy - oh but it IS fun to see it coming away....

well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as i thought id done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was, lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. and there was i as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than i had been. then he caught hold of me - i didn't like that much for i was very tender underneath now that id no skin on - and threw me into the water. it smarted like anything but only for for a moment. after that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as i started swimming and splashing i found that all the pain had gone from my arm. and then i saw why. if turned into a boy again..."

there really is no way for words to better describe the beauty of pain. walking faithfully with the Lord brings about so many moments/periods of us thinking we had repented and our Heavenly Father having to come in and claw. away. our filth and throw us into the well of his grace. and it hurts, and it doesn't make sense, but...

"...we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."
(2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ESV)

Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow.
difficult or easy, Praise the Father.

abc.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

my mud pies.

its funny how when you are searching for something, you don't usually find it. and when you're not really looking for something, you find it.

i have this rule of thumb - if i lose something, i refuse to look for it. because it somehow always seems to turn up when i forgot that i lost it.

recently the Lord has been shaking me up and kinda re-routing what path i thought i was heading down... a fork in the road if you will. so today i went to get in the word and was looking for a verse that i didn't know the reference for, which means of course i couldnt find it. i looked, and looked.... and nothing. so when i flipped to the back of my bible to the concordance, a sheet of paper i had taken sermon notes on from a long time ago fell out and instead of a verse to claim, i got a whole sermon.

dated: 1. 19. 2009.

preacher: Andy Lewis (check him out... he is LEGIT)

title: faith - what is it?

concluding note: "elation from desperation"

we never know what the Lord is preparing us for when we go to church on a sunday 3 years ago. or how sweet these 3 little words might be 10 years from now. or how peaceful a reference will be 5 months from now... we just never know what our Father is preparing for us...

its always intesting to me that the times i journal, pray, study the word, memorize scripture, listen to sermons, and every other stereotypical christian thing i could do, are when i am in desperation. desperation for clarity, guidance, understanding... desperately searching for the Lords will for my life.

but isnt that ironic? elation from desperation. desperation = seeking HARD after the Lord. seeking HARD after the Lord = Jesus. Jesus = elation. pretty simple, huh?

so why do we wait till we're desperate to seek HARD after him?

for me? because im distracted. i am SO easily distracted.

c.s.lewis knew what was up:

"Our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We’re half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition. When infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

my hope and prayer is that in my day in/day out life - i wouldnt wait for desperation to sink in till i finally look to my Father. but that in all, above all, and first of all
i would seek the precious face of Jesus causing
'all the things of this world to grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace'.

abc.


Wednesday, January 18, 2012

QOTW.


so i've really been slacking on the whole blog thing.... post to come soon! "runners high and road-trips" sounds intriguing, doesn't it?! until then...

abc.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

QOTW.


abc.